Tax relief

Platforms

Good Club is an online grocery shop that is selling over 2,000 sustainable staples (70% ambient food, 30% non-food) and delivering them directly from wholesalers to customers nationwide. By eliminating the middlemen, it has lowered its price on an average of 1.76% thereby making household groceries affordable. Now, it is advancing its packaging and technology to quickly tackle the single-use plastic crisis. Good Club is on a mission to cut waste by partnering with brands to package products in reusable packaging, offering a free recycling service and distributing and collecting product packaging and delivery boxes for reuse, without further expense. Furthermore, Good Club's aim is to help people live more sustainable lifestyles and become the world's first zero-waste online supermarket.

This fine jewellery business uses traceable conflict-free diamonds that are certified Fairtrade and made in the UK, which are sold directly to the customer from their premises in central London. Ingle & Rhode had revenues of £1.1m last year and are a profitable company seeking funds in this round to increase its marketing and enhance its website to improve conversion rates on its purchases.

One of the UK's leading natural & organic, beauty, health and well-being groups. The Brand Cloud has 10 businesses under its umbrella, with 4 being directly owned. The company has relationships with more than 200 retailers including Amazon, Tesco and Holland & Barrett and has over 75k contacts on their B2C network. The Brand Cloud has exclusive distribution agreements with brands and has developed multi-channel market routes.

OWNTHELOOK.COM is an online global womenswear store focusing on outfit dressing for the everyday woman. Launched in March ‘17 with over 40 emerging brands, they were titled “The new ASOS” by industry experts and have been featured widely in the media including Vogue, InStyle, and The Telegraph.

Helping customers find the right beauty product for their specific needs. Veleza users have produced 28k reviews and have provided 105k videos and photos of products amongst 511k monthly users. Veleza offers a subscription service for beauty businesses to have access to crowdsourced data on the platform, which has reportedly resulted in an increase in search traffic and sales. L'Oréal Paris, Urban Decay and Feelunique are customers of Veleza.

Fashion-oriented 'teething' products designed for babies and made from non-toxic materials, including the fully recyclable packaging. Since 2014, Nibbling has created over 150 lines that stocked by more than 300 retailers, such as Selfridges, Harrods and Amazon Prime. The company has a worldwide reach with distributors in Germany, Italy, Scandinavia and The Middle East. Nibbling has also been featured in Vanity Fair and Vogue Bambini.

Saving the UK's high street by hosting products online that are currently only available in physical retailers. DownYourHighStreet aims to become the e-commerce platform for high street shops that don't have the skills, time or money to deliver an online service.
Since launching in December 2017, 310 small shops have signed up to the platform, allowing them to compete with larger businesses and online-only firms. Currently, DownYourHighStreet is listing 50,000 products on their website. The company aims to rapidly scale their business with a target of 3000 shops within the next 12 months.

The company has recently developed a co-branded range of footwear under license with a major film franchise, strengthening Po-Zu’s profile in the footwear market, by using sustainable materials and handcrafting the shoes in Portugal to make a highly-authentic, screen-accurate footwear based on the footwear worn by some of the main characters in the films.

This company has solved a common problem in the travel industry by engineering the world's first smart, collapsible hard case luggage, which can fold down as small as 3 inches whilst being lightweight. Néit were runners up in British Invention of the Year 2016 and have already garnered 800 units in pre-orders.

Buying, selling and restoring designer handbags across the UK, Middle East and Monaco. Since launching in 2013, Handbag Clinic has cleaned and restored £30m worth of bags, including major labels such as Hermes and Chanel. The bags are purchased from their customers and are then sold at 50% of the RRP, making luxury fashion affordable. The company has their own independent stores and their services are also used by Harvey Nichols and Harrods. Clients of the business include Gucci, Dior, D&G, Jimmy Choo and many others.
Handbag Clinic achieved sales of £1m in 2018. In December 2018 alone, the sales of handbags exceeded £100,000. Handbag Clinic currently lists more than 500 bags on their e-commerce platform and are now raising funds to acquire more bags, redevelop their website and increase their brand awareness through marketing campaigns.

Sundried make premium, ethical active wear. All of their products are handmade with premium fabrics and materials. Sundried's innovative construction and ergonomic features enable excellent performance.

An award-winning grooming brand for men offering natural male beauty products, with the aim of becoming a global market leader. Hawkins & Brimble's range consists of 19 products sold in major retailers such as Sainsbury's, Boots and Etos, as well as in 10 countries around the world.
In the year-to-date, the business has achieved revenues of more than £1.3m and has seen a YoY sales increase of over 100%. The 2018 Lloyds Bank National Business Awards has shortlisted the CEO of Hawkins & Brimble, Stephen Shortt, for The Duke of York New Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The brand has been featured in numerous publications including GQ, The Guardian and Shortlist Magazine.
Hawkins & Brimble is currently sold in Norway, The Netherlands, China, South Africa and many other countries. The brand has registered its trademark in the EU, USA, and China. The company has recently signed a contract to sell their products in India and are currently in discussions with Brazil and Germany to launch their range in 2018/19.

Risk Warning

Investing in equity crowdfunding and early stage businesses involves high risks, which may include long-term investment horizons, illiquidity, lack of income and potential dilution. Any investor needs to be in the position to afford a total loss of capital invested.
businessagent.com is targeted at members who have the knowledge and experience to understand these risks and make their own investment decisions. You will NOT invest through businessagent.com but through the relevant crowdfunding website which also has signed off the content as a Financial Promotion on its own website. businessagent.com is not the originator of the financial promotions that appear on its site. However we do to the best of our ability carry out limited compliance checks on the originator and the company seeking funding to seek to ensure they are conforming to FCA regulations and anti-money laundering requirements as appropriate. businessagent.com takes no responsibility for this information or for any recommendations or opinions made by the companies or its users. Click here for our full risk warning.

risk warning

INVESTMENTS

Investing in the shares of start-up and early-stage companies can be satisfying and financially rewarding. But it is also very risky.

For example:

Loss of investment

There is a significant risk that you will lose your investment. Most start-up companies fail, and it can be many years before even the most successful start-up company begins to pay dividends. You are therefore much more likely to lose your investment than you are to see a return of your capital and a profit;

Lack of liquidity

If you make an investment, you will probably not be able to sell it for many years. Although it is sometimes possible to sell shares in a start-up company to other shareholders in the same company, it is much more likely that a share sale will be impossible unless and until the company is listed on a stock exchange or bought by another company. Even the most successful of start-up companies can take years to get to the point where it can be listed or sold;

Dilution

Your investment will probably be diluted. If you invest, you will receive shares in the company. If the company needs to raise more capital at a later date, it may issue new shares. If those shares are offered to existing investors and you choose not to buy any more shares, your share of the company will decline. Your share of the company will also decline if the company only offers its new shares to new investors. The company might also want or need to offer its new shares on better terms than the terms available on its existing shares. For example, the new shares might have preferential rights to dividends or sale proceeds, a right of first refusal on further share issues, or better voting rights than the existing shares. Each of these things is likely to be to your disadvantage.

Rarity of dividends

Dividends are payments made by a business to its shareholders from the company’s profits. Most of the companies pitching for equity are start-ups or early stage companies, and these companies will rarely pay dividends to their investors. This means that you are unlikely to see a return on your investment until you are able to sell your shares. Profits are typically re-invested into the business to fuel growth and build shareholder value. Businesses have no obligation to pay shareholder dividends.

The need for diversification when you invest

Diversification involves spreading your money across multiple investments to reduce risk. However, it will not lessen all types of risk. Diversification is an essential part of investing. Investors should only invest a proportion of their available investment funds and should balance this with safer, more liquid investments

Donations and rewards

Giving money to a company can be satisfying; especially if it’s doing – or wants to do – something you think is worthwhile.However, if you decide to give money to a company and it reaches its minimum target, it will be impossible, or almost impossible, to get it back - even if you change your mind immediately.

Loans

Lending money to start-up and early-stage companies can be satisfying and financially rewarding. But it is also involves risk including Loss of investment and interest payments, Lack of liquidity, Restricted redemption rights, Unsecured investments and being bottom of the chain to be paid when a business winds up. Most start-ups fail, and it can be many months or years before a successful start-up begins to make enough money to be able repay its debts. There is a significant risk that the company you lend money to:

• Will not be able to pay you back. If the company you lend money to cannot afford to repay you, you will lose some or all of the money you loaned to the company. You will also lose some or all of the interest you expected to receive in return for your loan;

• Will not be able to pay you back on time. If the company you lend money to cannot afford to repay you when the repayments are due, you may have to wait – perhaps for many months or years – to recover the money you loaned to the company and the interest you expected to receive in return for your loan;

• Will become insolvent. If the company you lend money to cannot afford to pay its debts to you or to its other creditors, the company may be wound up, dissolved or put it into receivership, liquidation or administration. If any of these things happen, you may not be able to recover the money you loaned to the company or the interest you expected to receive in return for your loan. You may also have to wait many months or years to recover any payment, and that payment may be much less that you would have been entitled to receive if the company had not become insolvent. This might happen because some of the company’s creditors (including the receiver, liquidator or administrator) might be entitled to receive their money before other creditors, and when they have been paid, the company might not have sufficient funds left to pay you.